From Egnazia, Ashby and Gardner continued to follow the Via Traiana along the coast until the road began to turn inland towards Benevento.
‘We followed its line (the Via Traiana) on foot, and were able to find remains of many of its bridges, some of which were not previously known to archaeologists; two of them, over wide river valleys in the neighbourhood of Foggia, were especially noticeable, being over 200 yards in length, with still longer embankments on each side’ (Thomas Ashby, Retracing Roman Highways, Melbourne Argus, 3rd October, 1914).
One of the bridges seen by Ashby and Gardner was in Canosa di Puglia, southeast of Foggia, where the Via Traiana crossed the Ofanto river. The Roman bridge (pictured) had already undergone various stages of reconstruction when Ashby and Gardner saw it, so it contained few traces of antiquity at the time. However, it was later severely damaged in WWII, and it now contains even fewer traces of its original Roman design and construction.
Photo by Robert Gardner: Bridge at Canosa, May 1913, Robert Gardner Collection, RG-0084
